Saturday 3 August

We arrived off the 45 min flight from Adelaide to glorious winter sunshine and met our guide Craig Wickham, Exceptional Kangaroo Island. First stop, morning tea at the BioR Kangaroo Island Rare Plant Garden, Cygnet River where rare and endemic species are safeguarded. Established in 2022, the Garden has a conservation, research and education focus. KI botanist Michelle Hady explained that there are around 180 species of threatened plants on KI, some found no where else on the planet. Plant seeds are being collected and stored in a seed bank. Others will also be used for habitat restoration projects including those that David Paton and the BioR team are working on.  

What a delight to release recently trapped and tagged birds with David, Penny and Fiona Paton (see KI Bird Identification).  

The glossy-black cockatoo is a KI icon with the last South Australian mainland populations sighted in the 1970s. At least 54% of the glossy-black cockatoo feeding habitat (drooping sheoak) and 38.5% of all known nests were destroyed in the fires. Paul Rogers (KI Landscape Board) introduced us to the recovery program for the glossies: propagating and planting sheoaks; installing nest boxes, managing nest sites to reduce predation and competition; and monitoring the population. Great news that the numbers are increasing thanks to a highly strategic program and community effort. 

Rischbieth is a well-known name on KI and we were thrilled to have welcome drinks hosted by South Australian AEGN member Henry Rischbieth (Letcombe Foundation) at his property Boobook on the Dudley Peninsula. What better location to hear from Paul Jennings (KI Landscape Board) about the Dudley Peninsula cat control program, the latest technologies in cat control and to meet Jaygar the detection dog. 

Conservation landholder, KI doctor and feral species island eradication enthusiast, Jamie Doube Dinner joined us for dinner at the Mercure KI Lodge. Jamie and his family own Western River Refuge, the conservation estate fenced by Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) to prevent cat predation on the KI dunnart, a Sunday site visit. 

Sunday 4 August

Jess Marsh, Invertebrates Australia, joined us for breakfast and shared background on the impressively named, but imperilled KI Assassin Spider.  The small number known to survive live in the leaf litter of one unburned creek line in the island’s west. Despite being Critically Endangered under the EPBC Act and the IUCN Red List, the assassin spider doesn’t enjoy the iconic status of the glossies (and related funded). More field research is needed along with awareness raising to prevent landholders conducting controlled burns, removing the leaf litter and potentially adding another species to Australia’s extinction record.   

We were later heartened to hear more about the extraordinary efforts to protect the threatened Kangaroo Island dunnart with a 369 ha safe haven at the Western River Refuge. The small carnivorous marsupials’ habitat is also restricted to the west of the island, an area largely ravaged by the fires. When the AWC heard that dunnarts were being sighted after the fires, they mobilised, conducting ecological surveys and developing a feral predator management plan in collaboration with KI Land for Wildlife and the Doube family. AWC staff Pat Hodgens and John Massingham explained the rapid establishment of the 8.8 km fence and ongoing cat control. A great example of the agile funding possible through philanthropy and the NGO sector. 

Further west, and one of the first properties listed on the KI Land for Wildlife program when the initiative began in 2018, is the De Tong Buddhist Stupa. What a grounding, precious place and unburned in the fires. So many landholders were less fortunate. Heidi Groffen (KI Land for Wildlife) and Caroline Paterson (Birdlife Australia, Bushfire Recovery) work closely with landholders burned out on western KI, monitoring species, managing threats (including feral species) and restoring habitat. These stewardship programs also connect landholders with each other and with recovering native species on their land. It’s important work both socially and ecologically.  

Sabrina Davis and her husband lost their farm, fences, livestock, house and sheds and are now part of Heidi’s LFW program. Claire O’Rourke interviewed Sabrina following the fires and her story, developing Humans of KI, features in Claire’s book Together We Can. They’d only spoken online so the site visit to the Davis’ was serendipitous. We followed Heidi through the regenerating bushland to a KI dunnart burrow. The entrance was smaller than a golf ball but the wildlife monitoring camera at the entrance was the giveaway. Hope and endurance from the ashes.  

No trip to KI is complete without sea lions and we delighted in the welcome party on the walkway, the playful teen on the beach and dune lay-abouts. The impacts of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) on KI’s birds and endangered sea lions if/when it arrives is a future we don’t want to imagine.  

Back at American River in Samphire Restaurant, we enjoyed a delicious meal and conversation with Daniel Clarke, SA journalist of the year and Walkley Award winner. Stories have played an important role in post-fire recovery. Making sense of things; community building; telling others.  

Dan has generously provided us with access to his recent award-winning production: Lost in the Woods (on the corporate fiasco, community outrage and ecological disaster of blue gum plantations on KI). Dan has also developed a trailer for a documentary The Wild Man of Oz (seeking funding) on SA conservationist John Wamsley, of feral cat hat and Earth Sanctuaries fame.

Monday 5 August

Over breakfast we submerged ourselves with The Nature Conservancy’s Anita Thomas. TNC is leading Reef Builder, a program to restore critically endangered shellfish reefs around the country including off KI’s Nepean Bay and near Adelaide’s Glenelg Beach. Local limestone is built up and seeded with locally sourced Australian Flat Oysters increasing biodiversity, fish abundance and water quality. Plus there’s the broader benefits of economic and social recovery. 

The ocean features large for island communities and KI/Victor Harbour Dolphin Watch enables citizen scientists to monitor and report dolphins and whales. Tony and Phyll Bartram (who also joined us for brekkie) founded the program in 2005 and since then have been collecting baseline data to better understand the species and behaviours, and to inform ocean management. They’re also the Mission Blue Hope Spot champions, seeking protection of KI’s northern waters. 

After packing up and checking out, former mayor and KI champion, Jayne Bates led us around the 1.5 km KI Sculpture Trail in the heart of Penneshaw on the northeast of the island. Wandering through the dunes and woodlands, Jayne shared the labour of love behind the installations, and the heart wrenching stories. From giant native orchids to mosaics of KI’s endemic birds, footprints in stones collected by KI students from every beach around the island and a memorial tree in tribute to Sarah Strong-Law, an adored KI mother and community leader.   

In a somewhat truncated lunch conversation before dashing to the ferry, we reflected on the trip highlights agreeing that KI is Australia’s Galapagos. 

As incoming AEGN CEO, Claire expressed her gratitude for the deep dive into nature conservation summing up, ‘In addition to the pleasure of having time with funders there was a real sense of hope, nourished by the community champions we met and the stories they told – stories of loss, of slow recovery, of the emerging connection to nature of the next generation. I was impressed by the technologies being used in monitoring and management and heartened that relationships ultimately underpin the success of conservation and community programs.  Very inspiring to hear that so much important work has been enabled by philanthropy (including by funders on the field trip and many other AEGN members) but of course, there’s so much more to do.’ 

For more information on the organisations and programs introduced on the KI field trip, opportunities to fund KI initiatives, AEGN’s Nature Funding Framework or to join the KI funders mailing group, contact Margie Jenkin, Program Manager – Nature on margie@aegn.org.au